from a Salon interview with Tim Grieve, June '05:
...TG: And what can you do about issues like these over the next however long it is before you make a decision about 2008? WC: It's a matter of both formulating and speaking and acting. I laid out a strategy in the book I published in 2003, "Winning Modern Wars," in the sixth chapter. It's still the right strategy for America. It's even more current now than it was then about how we have to conduct ourselves abroad and what we have to do at home to meet the competition from overseas. And then I think we've got to encourage Americans to get moving. TG: "Get moving" in what sense? WC: On education, healthcare reform, dealing with the reality of poverty, heading off crises before they erupt into war, promoting better business practices at home and a better business environment at home. TG: It seems like that would have, if not the dual purpose, at least the dual effect, of shaping the debate and broadening your own portfolio a bit. WC: Well, I have a broad background. People in uniform have had incredibly varied careers, and they've done a lot of things. Because so many Americans don't haven't gone through the military themselves, they may be not aware of that. In the military I was responsible for 44,000 schoolchildren in Europe. I had a number of hospitals [to oversee], I had to deal with problems of diplomacy, I had to deal with base-closure problems and job problems in the civilian economy, I had a big budget to manage -- in addition to being a sort of traditional general. And in the military, we got all the education that you could possibly want. I had a degree in philosophy, politics, economics. I taught political philosophy and economics. I was an assistant in the White House Office of Management and Budget. I saw how budget decisions are made. I saw how the president goes through the annual budget, and I worked the process with Congress.
WC: It's a matter of both formulating and speaking and acting. I laid out a strategy in the book I published in 2003, "Winning Modern Wars," in the sixth chapter. It's still the right strategy for America. It's even more current now than it was then about how we have to conduct ourselves abroad and what we have to do at home to meet the competition from overseas. And then I think we've got to encourage Americans to get moving.
TG: "Get moving" in what sense?
WC: On education, healthcare reform, dealing with the reality of poverty, heading off crises before they erupt into war, promoting better business practices at home and a better business environment at home.
TG: It seems like that would have, if not the dual purpose, at least the dual effect, of shaping the debate and broadening your own portfolio a bit.
WC: Well, I have a broad background. People in uniform have had incredibly varied careers, and they've done a lot of things. Because so many Americans don't haven't gone through the military themselves, they may be not aware of that.
In the military I was responsible for 44,000 schoolchildren in Europe. I had a number of hospitals [to oversee], I had to deal with problems of diplomacy, I had to deal with base-closure problems and job problems in the civilian economy, I had a big budget to manage -- in addition to being a sort of traditional general. And in the military, we got all the education that you could possibly want. I had a degree in philosophy, politics, economics. I taught political philosophy and economics. I was an assistant in the White House Office of Management and Budget. I saw how budget decisions are made. I saw how the president goes through the annual budget, and I worked the process with Congress.
